


Blademaster

by cteranodon



Category: Xenoblade Chronicles X
Genre: Fluff, M/M, Science Fiction, Video Game Mechanics
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-09-06
Updated: 2018-09-06
Packaged: 2019-07-07 15:44:07
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,009
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15911307
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/cteranodon/pseuds/cteranodon
Summary: Cross and Phog pull through a harrowing battle with one of the most dangerous creatures in Cauldros, and Phog has to make sure Cross takes it easy afterward. It's the perfect chance for Phog to ask Cross a difficult question that's been on his mind.





	Blademaster

**Author's Note:**

> TO PEOPLE WHO HAVE PLAYED XCX: My Cross uses the "Male/Studious" voice, so the diction/syntax of that voice is what i use for him in this fic. I also wrote in my Skell builds, which I'll enumerate in the end notes.
> 
> TO PEOPLE WHO HAVEN'T PLAYED XCX: thanks for letting me drag you into reading this. Heads up that this is gonna give away the big midgame spoiler for XCX. A quick vocab lesson: Mira = the planet that's the setting for this game, where the humans have found themselves after escaping from a destroyed earth. Skell = the cool humanoid mechs that humans use. Indigens = life forms native to Mira. Mims = mimeosomes = the mechanical bodies that all humans currently have, which are almost indistinguishable from natural human bodies (that's the midgame spoiler, by the way).

“Come on, get up,” an angelic voice said. “We’ll make it through this together.”

Cross opened his eyes. He had expected, on some level, that he’d wake up in the hereafter, his vision filled by heavenly hosts. Apparently, he’d been resuscitated, and before his eyes was instead the gentle face of the one who’d done it, Phog Cristoph.

Undoubtedly, the only person alive who could compete with heavenly hosts and win.

It took Cross a second more to remember what had taken him out. He jolted up to a sit. “Did you take care of Terenty?”

With a crash, a giant mech fell to the ground about forty meters away, before it was pounced on by a colossal purple creature that bore some resemblance to mantises of Earth.

“Is that answer enough?” called Irina’s voice in Cross’s earpiece. “Now could you two finish up with the tender moment and lend me a hand?”

Phog pulled Cross to his feet, and the pair pulled out their matching dual guns.

“Laying down cover fire,” Cross said. “Phog, get back to your Skell.”

“And let you get downed by Big Nasty again?! Not a chance!” Phog opened fire.

‘Big Nasty,’ more widely known as the top-threat-level Miran life form codenamed Terenty the Blademaster, brushed off the additional fire and reeled back to put as much force as possible into its next strike. Aiming the stinger on its arm at the Skell under its feet, Terenty whaled downward. Thankfully, Irina’s Formula Zero was nimble even when pinned to the ground. She zoomed between Terenty’s legs, righted her Zero, and lashed Terenty in the rear with a saber.

As Terenty turned to retaliate, another Skell zoomed in, unleashing a thick, precise column of fire. It was Alexa, aboard her Excavator, having just recharged and promptly re-unloaded the Dragon’s Maw weapon she had gotten fitted the previous day.

“Cross, you have GOT to tell me where you found this thing,” Alexa said. “Every time I use it, it feels like falling in love.”

“Alexa, I support your Skell fetish, but this is the worst time for it.” Irina intercepted another Terenty blow with a swing of her Ringedge. “This thing has killed some of our best. We need to take it down right here.”

Terenty, fed up with the treatment it was getting from the Skells, seemed to suddenly remember that it still greatly outsized the two of them put together. It spun in place, aiming all its available limbs at them both.

There was good news and bad news to this action’s immediate fallout. The good news was that it showed off the strengths of both the Excavator and the Zero. Even Terenty’s mighty blows glanced off the heavily armored Excavator, and Irina’s skill with the lightning-fast Zero saw it maneuvering out of Terenty’s reach just in the nick of time.

The bad news was that both Skells were now staggered, and Terenty had laid eyes on Cross and Phog, who Terenty could probably crush just by breathing on.

“Phog!” Cross shouted. “Skell! Now!”

This time, Phog trusted Cross’s call, sprinting towards his Inferno Skydon. Terenty ignored Phog, its sights set on Cross marching confidently toward it.

With a hurtling lunge, Terenty threw its entire body on the spot Cross was standing.

Except…

“Heh.” Irina was an admirer of this trick.

Terenty had landed on an illusory projection of Cross. The real Cross was a short way off, sword now in hand, surrounded by an ethereal glow, signaling he’d activated his mim’s Overdrive. Irina and Alexa had bought him a few seconds short of enough time to prepare it, and Terenty falling for the decoy had gotten him the rest of the way.

Terenty was _definitely_ going down now.

Irina rushed in, aiming for one of Terenty’s stingers. It tried to smash back the Zero, but that only gave her even more of an opening to crush the stinger for good. Before it had a chance to react, dozens of small detonations struck its body. It made an unseeing scramble to strike back at their source: Phog’s Skydon, arriving next to Cross. A halo of light was above it. He’d activated the other kind of Overdrive.

Phog advanced, raising the Skydon’s fist to pump Terenty full of needles. Enraged and cornered, Terenty punched the Skydon, but the kinetic energy reflected off the skell’s surface, and Terenty’s other stinger crumpled under its own force. Phog kept the Skydon slowly walking forward. Terenty’s blows became more and more desperate, but each one that landed reverberated off the Skydon entirely and wounded Terenty more.

“Keep trying, I know you’ll get there,” Phog said. “You made it personal when you almost killed Cross. And this is what happens when you mess with a Cristoph.”

Cross leapt onto the Skydon’s foot, and Phog kicked upward, boosting him toward Terenty’s torso. Cross spun in midair, and the energy of his over-driven longsword sliced through Terenty’s gargantuan carapace like it was nothing.

With an echoing, angry death rattle, Terenty fell to the ground, shaking the very earth around it. Cross had disappeared under it as it fell.

“Cross!” Phog exited the Skydon as fast as he could. “Cross, are you okay?”

In his earpiece, he heard Cross’s voice: “I’m alive, and I think I’m staying that way, but I probably can’t make it to dinner out tonight.”

“I’m going to lift Terenty’s body,” Alexa said. “Will that help?”

“Go for it,” Cross answered.

The hulking Excavator was pint-sized compared to Terenty (which was a testament, among other things, to Terenty’s now-defunct status as one of the most dangerous indigens ever), but it was more than sturdy enough to pull Terenty off the ground. Phog rushed forward as soon as he thought it was safe.

“Great job, baby,” Alexa purred to the Excavator, “I’ll be sure to take you in for maintenance later.”

“Oh, wow, it won’t be the only one checking in.” Phog knelt by Cross and regarded his gruesome ‘wound,’ incurred by having a part of a titanic insectoid land directly on his leg. “Are you okay?”

“Not really,” Cross answered. “But I’ve been worse. At least it’s not the whole leg, right?”

“…You’re gonna need a new leg either way, so…”

“Hey.” Cross grabbed Phog by the back of his neck and pulled him in for a quiet, but passionate kiss.

“Great, I’m the only one here who doesn’t get to enjoy some post-battle romance,” Irina said with a false sourness.

“There’s always the Zero,” Alexa replied, sounding completely earnest.

“Thanks for saving my life,” Cross said. “Again.”

“I only have to do it fifty more times, and we’ll be even!” Phog moved to help Cross up, hunching under Cross’s shoulder to serve as the crutch for his bad leg. “Let’s get you home.”

***

“You know you don’t have to do this, right?” Cross asked lightly. “This isn’t how it works anymore.”

Phog handed him a plate piled with a mountain of comfort food. “It isn’t? I mean, you’re home from the hospital, right?”

“Maintenance center,” Cross corrected. “Because it’s a verifiable fact that I feel just fine. My injury doesn’t exist anymore. I have a whole new leg and everything. Same as the old leg. My recovery is _done_.”

“Can I point out something, just before you go on?” Phog had that timid, but crafty grin, that always signaled he was about to lay down a semantic thrashing. “You’re trying to make this point about us having synthetic bodies, to tell me what I’m doing doesn’t make any sense. But you’re focusing on your leg. You haven’t said anything about me handing you a meal.”

Cross popped a faux-chicken nugget in his mouth. “Are you talking about how we still… eat…?”

“And why do we still eat?” Phog swiped a nugget from the plate he’d home-cooked for Cross.

“They want our experiences with our new bodies to be as close as possible to what we had with our old ones, right?”

“Wouldn’t you say they’re pretty methodical about getting it right?”

Cross smirked. “You tell me.”

“…Is that an amnesia joke, or a sexual pass?”

“It’s both. You’re the only one here with memories of how things are supposed to feel.”

Phog sat down next to Cross. “Well, I’ll tell you that after a day like today, you would have really needed some rest. I think that hasn’t changed, and I’m probably the person who knows that best. I’ve been stressed out pretty much every day since we got to this planet.” He looked down timidly as he said it. “And on days when I know I’d be burnt out in my old body, I take it easy. Never once felt like it was a bad or even neutral call. I always have one of my best weeks after that, every time.”

“Well, if you insist, I can be spoiled for a day,” Cross said cheerfully.

“I don’t know about spoiling you for a whole day, can’t remember the last time I stayed on one task for that long.” Phog turned an affectionate gaze on Cross. “But I’ll do my best. What’s the word on the Reaper, by the way?”

“Insurance is taking care of it.” Cross’s own Skell, the Mastema White Reaper, had been wrecked in the battle with Terenty, but as usual, it was far from unsalvageable, and he wouldn’t need to worry about paying out of pocket for any of it.

Not _him_ , anyway, and certainly not for _that Skell_. The White Reaper was seen as such a valuable weapon, that there were probably people who would _pay Cross_ to repair it. And, in fairness, the same could be said for the Zero, Excavator, and Skydon. These were expensive mechs, way more advanced than any other weaponry the humans of Mira had, and they were the best shot at handling any unexpected threats, like Terenty.

“So can I ask… a tough question?”

Cross snapped back to reality. A ‘tough’ question was, among other things, code for a question that Phog would never have asked if Cross hadn’t stolen his heart quite so much. So, Cross wasn’t about to take that for granted. “Please, go ahead.”

“Why… do you always pick me?”

“Because I love you,” Cross answered plainly.

“No, I…” Phog couldn’t keep from emoting his reaction, looking down with a meek smile. “I mean, why do you bring me into battle with you? I’m so weak, and I hate being out there, even if I _am_ with you. No matter how I think about it, it doesn’t make any sense for you to bring me along as often as you do. And I’m not… upset, or trying to challenge you, I only want to understand.”

“You just managed to be very wrong and very right in the same sentence.” Cross leaned over to take Phog’s hand. “We’ll start with the wrong part: you’re absolutely strong. One of the strongest people I know. And I don’t just mean that in an emotional way, even though that’s important, too. I mean you’re _scary_ out there. I’ve fought alongside a lot of people, Phog. So you should trust me when I say I feel safe with you next to me.”

“That’s just you rubbing off on me.” Phog squeezed Cross’s hand.

“Maybe. Maybe not. Doesn’t change the fact that you’ve turned into a better fighter than your brother.”

“Now that… that’s not true at all.” Phog looked almost offended.

Cross stroked Phog’s fingers with his own. “Doesn’t matter if you think it’s true. You asked me a question, and I’m answering it. I feel better about _you_ taking on my enemies than I do with Frye. I mean, the way you advanced on Terenty earlier? That would be terrifying to anyone that wanted to mess with me.”

“It’s easier to do that in a Skell that _you_ modded to be almost untouchable.”

“It’s only untouchable when it’s got a pilot who knows how to work it.” Cross ate another of Phog’s nuggets. “It needs a delicate touch and a disciplined mind.”

“You modded it for _me_ to use.” Phog’s face was getting a little rosy. This was the first time he’d verbalized any of this – that Cross had commissioned one of the most advanced Skell models ever built, that Cross had gone the extra mile to turn the Skydon into a walking fortress, and all so Phog would have a safe but powerful vessel to fight in alongside Cross’s more powerful but less invincible White Reaper – and clearly Phog thought it was a very meaningful gesture.

“Yes. Your point?”

“You catered it to me. You didn’t make it ‘need’ anything that you thought I couldn’t give.”

“You’re right. I already knew how talented you were when I worked on it.”

Phog rolled his eyes, despite the fact that he was also shrinking in his seat, reeling a bit from how touched he was. “Anyway… a minute ago, you said I was ‘very right’ about something.” Phog, being always economical with his words, didn’t ask the question that followed.

“You hate being on the battlefield,” Cross said. “You remind me at least once a day. And you talk it out. With me sometimes, with friends other times. But always, always, you hate being out there, and you deal with it.”

“ _Well_ , I hate fighting. Seeing this planet, though, and studying it… I could do for the rest of my life. I like when we go on research missions.”

“Exactly my point.” Cross was finishing up his meal, so he set his plate aside, scooted inward, and wrapped an arm around Phog’s shoulders. “People act like you’re the most soft-spoken person they’ve ever met, just because you’re quiet a lot of the time. But you actually _say_ you don’t like fighting, and that there are other things you could be doing. You admit that you’re scared, and that you’re weary of our constant struggle to survive. And then you get back out there and keep doing it. Fighting for our species. You’re assertive when you need to be, you’re brave, _and_ you’re well-adjusted.”

Phog leaned against Cross, resting his head on Cross’s shoulder. “…Thank you.”

“I know it’s tough.” Cross kissed the top of Phog’s head. “And I’m sorry. But we’ve handled most of what Mira had to throw at us. Maybe, once we get to the point where we can spend a whole month without getting in a Skell, I’ll use my incomprehensible fortune to find you a nice therapist.”

“Pfff.” Phog decided the current position was insufficient, and laid down atop Cross’s lap. “Maybe. Where’d you get all that, anyway?”

“When you help out killing Luxaar, people put a lot on your shoulders.” Cross absently put one hand to Phog’s hair, weaving his fingers through and about, as the other hand snatched up some scraps from the plate of food next to him. “And then they try to _make it up_ to you. Obviously, before I do anything else, I have to make sure you and I and everyone who’s ever fought beside either of us never has to worry about living expenses again. But after that, I haven’t decided what we’ll do with all that money. I’m open to suggestions.”

“Since when do I get a say in that?”

“I kind of assumed you were here to stay.”

“O-oh!” Phog sat up, holding his face in his embarrassment. “That should have been obvious. Huh.”

“Was I wrong?”

“No! No, you… you weren’t. I’m sorry. I just… Wow, it’s really…” He shook his head, unable to meet Cross’s eyes. “It’s really hard to think of anything as permanent anymore. We lost our whole _planet_. And I know I’m on better terms with that than Frye is, but that still doesn’t make it easy, you know? When I’m not lying awake at night thinking about the close calls I’ve had, I’m lying awake at night thinking about that.”

“It’s hard for me, too,” Cross said, “and I don’t even remember any of it.”

“We don’t know if _anybody_ else made it off Earth before it was destroyed,” Phog continued. “And even then, doesn’t change the virtual certainty that billions of people died. More died after we got to Mira. We’re a species on the verge of extinction. It’s just hard to think about the future when we’re so… fragile.”

“We’re not so fragile anymore.” Cross gave Phog another kiss on top of his head. “And if you ask me, the best way to honor the people we’ve lost is by living our best lives here on Mira. In my opinion, it won’t be my best life without you in it.”

For a minute, Phog didn’t say anything. Slowly, he collapsed back against his couch, staring into space. “That’s got to be the nicest thing I’ve ever heard.”

“Brings us back to the question of what you’d want when I get around to spoiling you.” Cross smiled smugly at his handiwork.

“…Do you wanna help me recreate some of the machines we’ve fought against?”

“Recreate? As in…?”

“They don’t have to do all of the exact same things, but same ether-based propulsion. Stuff along those lines.” Phog’s weakened state had left him vulnerable enough that he was showing his excitement. “Since we can’t take control of them ourselves, it would be nice to just build our own. They could handle simple jobs like keeping watch, maybe get rid of some problematic indigens, just take a lot of the load off our shoulders.”

“It’s an ambitious project,” Cross said. “And a very ‘you’ project.”

“It was a pipe dream until about thirty seconds ago.” Phog finally looked up at Cross again, his hair mostly obscuring his eyes, but his face still positively glowing. “So that’s pretty cool. I hadn’t thought you might be ready to help with something like that.”

Cross beckoned Phog toward him, and they shared an embrace.

“What can I say?” Cross nuzzled against Phog’s soft hair. “I’m taking you seriously. We’ll make it through this together.”

**Author's Note:**

> My Skell builds:
> 
> Inferno Skydon - Indefinite Overdrive/Reflect  
> Excavator - Thermal/Tank  
> Formula Zero - Evasion/Beam
> 
> And my Cross has a very generic ether blossom build, for what that's worth.


End file.
